Last month, mobile startup Snaptee celebrated reaching 1 million t-shirt designs by announcing an app partnership with Manga Camera. The popular cartoonifying camera app, which reached 1 million downloads within its first week of release, will be Snaptee’s first beta partner.
We had a chat with co-founder (and brand new father) Wai Lun Hong and he talked about his startup’s success and the types of partnerships that Snaptee users can expect in the future.
“In the upcoming year, we want to focus more on partnerships,” said Wai Lun. “One of the things we want to launch is partnerships with game companies, focused on games that have amazing graphics of characters. We want to help them further monetize their artwork”
Wai Lun wasn’t able to reveal the name of these mystery gaming startups, but he said the sky’s the limit when it comes to potential Snaptee partnerships. Another area that Wai Lun and his team are planning on tackling is the music industry – with a focus on musicians and concerts. According to Wai Lun, fashion brands are also another area they’re looking into – but he stressed that app partnerships will be their first priority.
Having just raised a seed round of US $600,000 back in February of last year, Snaptee has come a long way since then. After being featured as “New and Noteworthy” in the Apple App Store, this Hong Kong startup is now shipping out to 55 countries catering to over 300,000 registered users.
So what has this mobile tech and eCommerce company done to differentiate themselves in their path to startup success? “One thing that sets us a part from our competitors is we’re super mobile-focused,” he said. “Many of our efforts have been put into improving the app of the web mobile experience, which is what a lot of others companies in our space would ignore.”
Wai Lun advises other mobile startups hoping to achieve success in the overcrowded space to focus on getting product ready. “They should make the app as impressive as possible. That will be the key for getting investors, media mentions or Apple to feature your app,” said Wai Lun. “We had our prototype ready from day one even before we raised the first round – have a working demo ready that can show your key concept.”
Snaptee on Startbase.HK: Snaptee
Wai Lun Hong on Startbase.HK: Wai Lun Hong
